Aveda Institute San Antonio, the first tenant at the Pearl development, will vacate about 25,000 square feet there and relocate to a smaller space on the far North Side by June.

The institute will move to a roughly 17,000-square-foot building at 21003 Encino Commons, where owner Kathy Thalman expects the growth of hotels, apartments and shopping centers in the area to better support her student services and product sales.

She offered cosmetology and esthiology courses for about eight years at the Pearl and has seen enrollment rise to nearly 150 students. But Thalman said the inner-city residential boom hasn't benefited Aveda much.

“Unfortunately for us, the majority of residents moving to that area are either young singles or 'empty-nesters' and do not support our student population enrollment as the (North Side location) does,” she said in an email.

“We are sorry to leave because we have so much history there,” Thalman added.

In 2010, Aveda Institute expanded into adjacent space at the Pearl after the Texas Farm-to-Table Cafe closed, and Thalman soon realized she had more square feet than she needed.

“Doing business (at the Pearl) isn't too expensive, per square foot, but when we took the entire building, it was a little bit more than what we needed,” she said. “We had a very fair rent structure (but) when we tried to downsize and find something closer to 16,000 square feet, they didn't really have anything that fit our model.”

Thalman added that more than 60 percent of the institute's students travel from north of Loop 410 and as far away as New Braunfels and Boerne.

Pearl already has partnered with a real estate brokerage firm to lease the space when it's available, said Elizabeth Fauerso, the Pearl's chief marketing officer.

“The Pearl garage is a desirable class A commercial space located in the heart of the Pearl neighborhood,” she said. “We ... are excited about the next phase of use.”